[SOLVED] Relevance of Threadripper 1920x in Q3 2019

virtualdanger

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I was considering building a system around a Threadripper 1920x, given the low cost of the CPU. But considering that it's 2 years old now, and the newer Ryzen 2700x trumps it considerably in gaming, and is almost equivalent in Productivity (Based on Tom's Hardware CPU Hierarchy), I'm wondering if its a bad idea.

My usage is mixed, general browsing and media consumption, some gaming, but also video editing on Adobe Premiere.

I've read about the interconnect latency, as well as the impact of slower memory. Note that I do not plan to buy new memory, but use my existing memory - G.Skill Ripjaws 4 32GB (4x8GB @ 2400).

Other Specs:
Gigabyte Aorus X399 Pro
G.Skill Ripjaws 4 32GB (4x8GB @ 2400)
Noctua NH-U14S
XPG SX8200 Pro 256GB (2x configured in RAID 0)
Gigabyte Windforce Radeon R9 290
Corsair TX 750

I will likely upgrade my GPU next year.
The memory and PSU are existing, from my current Skylake i5-6500 system.
CPU, Mobo, Cooler, and XPG NVMe drives will be new.
I have 7 HDDs and 1 Bluray drive, and this will transition to the 8 SATA ports on the X399 mobo.

My Questions:
  • Based on the 2400 memory, and CPU interconnect latencies, how much of a performance degradation should I expect?
  • Does it make sense to build the system around the Threadripper 1920x next month, or should I wait for the 3rd Gen of TR to be released, and consider the 2nd Gen TR? (there is speculation of an Aug announcement).
  • Coupled with a new GPU next year (> RTX 2060), will Threadripper 1920x bottleneck my gaming performance?
  • One sure advantage I will get is the RAID 0 based NVMe boot drive on the Threadripper build. I am currently running a single Intel 660p 512GB NVMe drive. I assume the system responsiveness and app load times will be significantly improved?
  • Any other considerations?
Thank you.
 
Solution
My usage is mixed, general browsing and media consumption, some gaming, but also video editing on Adobe Premiere.
Based on this, I get the impression that you might be better off with a processor offering a good mix of performance in both light and heavily-multithreaded applications. A 1920X has a lot of cores, but performance per-core is outdone by many other processors. Something like a Ryzen 3700X or 3900X, with their improved IPC and higher boost clocks, should offer upward of 20% more performance per core than that processor. Even if the 3900X is priced higher than you would like to spend, the 8-core, 16-thread 3700X shouldn't be too far behind a 1920X in applications that can utilize lots of threads, like video...
Yeah going with a 1920X in 2019 is one of the worst decisions anybody can make when building a computer.

I would recommend going with a Ryzen 9 3900X which will absolutely destroy that 1920X, and pair it with a cheaper X570 or good X470 board. And you aren't dealing with the latency penalties all Threadripper chips have to take.

3rd Gen Ryzen is so good at productivity, that really you don't need to look at the HEDT platform. And price wise, it's not bad at all.

If possible, overclock your DIMMs to 3200mhz. Might need 1.4v but that should be good. However i cannot guarantee anything, especially on Skylake old DDR4. But yes, 2400mhz speed is not great at all on Ryzen.

oh and FYI, if you think you need QUAD channel memory support, you don't really need it. I looked up some benchmarks and quad channel vs dual channel in almost every single app is basically the same performance.
 
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The only Ryzen chips that excel at adobe software are the 3rd generation ryzen processors.

A 3700x or 39000x handily whoop every non-hedt CPU intel has to offer in adobe. They even give high core count TR cpus a run for their money. The only drawback is the lack of Quicksync support which Intel has to their advantage, however, very few things in premier benefit from Quicksync.

The major performance impact 2400mhz will cause is due to the reduced Infinity fabric clock. As LTT showed on a recent video, slower ram with an infinity fabric OC (something only possible with 3rd gen CPUs) will rival faster ram. I would suggest using the 2400, but trying to overclock the ram and potentially overclocking the if clock.

What is your all in budget? A 3900x is a good option.
 
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Thing you have to consider is while the 3900x absolutely crushes the 1920x ( both being 12 core/24 thread) the 3900x is twice the price. If you compare it price wise the 1920 is still cheaper then the 3700x by almost $50 and has more cores and threads . At that point its what do you need? The way better gaming of the 3700x or the multi threaded strength of the 1920x. My advice is get the 3900x and a decent board. Even a low end 570 or a good x470 would be $100 cheaper then the Gigabyte x399 which would make up some ot the cost difference.
 
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DSzymborski

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Let me be frank about this: I'm not sure the point of this upgrade path at all. Staying with the old, slow memory already cancels out a lot of the benefit of a platform change, so I'm not seeing much of a purpose in even changing platforms at this point. Plugging in a 7700k after a BIOS update on the motherboard you already have is the most sensible to me if you're not doing a full upgrade including the memory and don't have a professional level workload in which any loss of a time has a serious financial impact.

And without very specific needs that I'm not seeing here, I don't see the point of a Raid0 NVMe solution. There will be absolutely no detectable real world impact; like someone just focusing on their glamour muscles at a gym, your impact will pretty much only be seen in benchmarks.
 
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rigg42

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The infinity fabric clock is decoupled from the memory speed on the 3000 cpu's. Having slow memory doesn't matter as much on the 3000 CPU's as it did on previous Ryzens. You just need to max out your FCLK to compensate. I agree that the 1920 should be avoided due to platform cost. A 3900x, suitable x570 motherboard, and a cooler should come out to about $800 USD plus tax. I don't imagine you can do much better than that on x399 and it would perform considerably worse. I wouldn't use the stock cooler on a 3900x. Dual tower or 280/360mm AIO should be used IMO. Using the Prism on a 3900x is like using a stealth on a 3600. It works...... just not very well.

I'd look into an Intel with an IGP for your use case. Quick sync is king for Adobe Premiere rendering and I don't believe premiere scales all that well with cores. If Micro Center is an option for you they have the 9900 (non K) for $400. Pair that up with a mid range z390 ($30 bundle discount at MC) and max out all of the power and turbo duration limits so it ignores the TDP. It should work just like a stock 9900k as long as you stick a good cooler on it.
 
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Not to mention you can upgrade to a 16 core.

I have a feeling that once the full 3rd generation Ryzen lineup for AM4 is released, it will mostly obsolete the first generation Threadripper lineup.

Threadripper would still have benefits such as more PCIe lanes and quad-channel ram support, but the 3700x, 3900x, and 3950x would have many benefits over their same core count 1st gen TR competitors.

3rd gen CPUs rock with IPC and have high enough clocks that single-threaded performance is actually excellent. 1st gen threadripper has ok clocks and mediocre IPC but still performs ok.
 
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My usage is mixed, general browsing and media consumption, some gaming, but also video editing on Adobe Premiere.
Based on this, I get the impression that you might be better off with a processor offering a good mix of performance in both light and heavily-multithreaded applications. A 1920X has a lot of cores, but performance per-core is outdone by many other processors. Something like a Ryzen 3700X or 3900X, with their improved IPC and higher boost clocks, should offer upward of 20% more performance per core than that processor. Even if the 3900X is priced higher than you would like to spend, the 8-core, 16-thread 3700X shouldn't be too far behind a 1920X in applications that can utilize lots of threads, like video encoders, and will be notably faster in the vast majority of applications that only utilize a limited number of threads. So, around this price range, a 3700X might be your best bet.

And as has been pointed out, the speed of the infinity fabric has been decoupled from the speed of the memory in third-gen Ryzen. So, you can manually set the fabric clock for one of these newer processors to around 1800MHz, even if you were to keep your existing RAM running at DDR4-2400, where that interconnect would only be running at 1200MHz otherwise. Doing this would make the performance difference between first and third-gen Ryzen even larger, at least without a significant memory overclock.

One sure advantage I will get is the RAID 0 based NVMe boot drive on the Threadripper build. I am currently running a single Intel 660p 512GB NVMe drive. I assume the system responsiveness and app load times will be significantly improved?
Not really. Putting NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 only tends to improve performance in very limited usage scenarios, and can actually hurt performance in others. Considering the reduced reliability of a RAID 0 setup, it's generally not a good idea unless you know for sure than some regularly-used application can significantly benefit from it, which most won't. Even without RAID, the performance benefits of going with a fast NVMe drive over even a SATA-based SSD will be limited, with things like game load times improving by only around 10% or so. An NVMe drive might be multiple times as fast, but any of these drives are fast enough that the system will be waiting on things like CPU and RAM performance much of the time when loading applications and games.

I have 7 HDDs and 1 Bluray drive, and this will transition to the 8 SATA ports on the X399 mobo.
That's a lot of drives. : D Have you considered replacing some of the older, lower capacity drives with higher capacity models and relegating those older ones to backup use?
 
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virtualdanger

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Thank you everyone for the useful information. It helped confirm most of my fears, and made it pretty evident that going the Gen 1 Threadripper route was futile, irrespective of the no. of cores. I have now scrapped my plan for the upgrade, and will hold-off for a bit. Unless I see a good deal that catches my attention, I may even hold off until next year for me upgrade.
 

virtualdanger

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Thing you have to consider is while the 3900x absolutely crushes the 1920x ( both being 12 core/24 thread) the 3900x is twice the price. If you compare it price wise the 1920 is still cheaper then the 3700x by almost $50 and has more cores and threads . At that point its what do you need? The way better gaming of the 3700x or the multi threaded strength of the 1920x. My advice is get the 3900x and a decent board. Even a low end 570 or a good x470 would be $100 cheaper then the Gigabyte x399 which would make up some ot the cost difference.

Yes, while the 3900x maybe ideal, its way more than I'm planning to spend. The 1920x build was gonna cost me around $750 US. The 3700x with a x470 board would have been the ideal option; besides I wouldn't need a cooler as well.
 

virtualdanger

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Let me be frank about this: I'm not sure the point of this upgrade path at all. Staying with the old, slow memory already cancels out a lot of the benefit of a platform change, so I'm not seeing much of a purpose in even changing platforms at this point. Plugging in a 7700k after a BIOS update on the motherboard you already have is the most sensible to me if you're not doing a full upgrade including the memory and don't have a professional level workload in which any loss of a time has a serious financial impact.

And without very specific needs that I'm not seeing here, I don't see the point of a Raid0 NVMe solution. There will be absolutely no detectable real world impact; like someone just focusing on their glamour muscles at a gym, your impact will pretty much only be seen in benchmarks.

Yes, the 7700k into my existing system was the most obvious, quick and easy upgrade. I did consider that initially. Maybe if can find a cheap used one, I could revert back to that plan.

How much of a difference can I expect from the 7700k over the i5 6500?

I dont care about benchmarks. I will likely never even benchmark the setup. Only looking for real world differences.
 

punkncat

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Even in regard to waiting a year for a major upgrade, I think you would do yourself loads of good in finding a 6th or 7th gen i7 on the used market and going there, first. Intel doesn't really have the memory speed penalty that AMD does. For the price and simplicity of simply swapping the CPU (I didn't note cooler) I think you would see a nice "tie over" performance boost.
 
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virtualdanger

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Based on this, I get the impression that you might be better off with a processor offering a good mix of performance in both light and heavily-multithreaded applications. A 1920X has a lot of cores, but performance per-core is outdone by many other processors. Something like a Ryzen 3700X or 3900X, with their improved IPC and higher boost clocks, should offer upward of 20% more performance per core than that processor. Even if the 3900X is priced higher than you would like to spend, the 8-core, 16-thread 3700X shouldn't be too far behind a 1920X in applications that can utilize lots of threads, like video encoders, and will be notably faster in the vast majority of applications that only utilize a limited number of threads. So, around this price range, a 3700X might be your best bet.

And as has been pointed out, the speed of the infinity fabric has been decoupled from the speed of the memory in third-gen Ryzen. So, you can manually set the fabric clock for one of these newer processors to around 1800MHz, even if you were to keep your existing RAM running at DDR4-2400, where that interconnect would only be running at 1200MHz otherwise. Doing this would make the performance difference between first and third-gen Ryzen even larger, at least without a significant memory overclock.


Not really. Putting NVMe SSDs in RAID 0 only tends to improve performance in very limited usage scenarios, and can actually hurt performance in others. Considering the reduced reliability of a RAID 0 setup, it's generally not a good idea unless you know for sure than some regularly-used application can significantly benefit from it, which most won't. Even without RAID, the performance benefits of going with a fast NVMe drive over even a SATA-based SSD will be limited, with things like game load times improving by only around 10% or so. An NVMe drive might be multiple times as fast, but any of these drives are fast enough that the system will be waiting on things like CPU and RAM performance much of the time when loading applications and games.


That's a lot of drives. : D Have you considered replacing some of the older, lower capacity drives with higher capacity models and relegating those older ones to backup use?

From the Ryzen 2 product stack, the 2700X seemed well suited for me, so yeah, probably the 3700X would best fit my budget and plan.

The ability to decouple the Infinity Fabric and keep my existing memory is a big draw as well. May likely end up doing that, even if I post-pone the entire upgrade to next year.

Thanks, Yes perhaps the minimal gains of going RAID 0 NVMe is not worth it.

Yes, I am periodically doing that. Had put in 4 and 5 TB drives to replaces the older 1.5 and 2 TB drives. Now I will be swapping out some with 8 TB drives. Have considered a NAS storage box instead, but given that the data isn't access from multiple machines, and that the Mobo and PSU are able to support this setup, I have not seen much reason to go that route.
 

virtualdanger

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Even in regard to waiting a year for a major upgrade, I think you would do yourself loads of good in finding a 6th or 7th gen i7 on the used market and going there, first. Intel doesn't really have the memory speed penalty that AMD does. For the price and simplicity of simply swapping the CPU (I didn't note cooler) I think you would see a nice "tie over" performance boost.

Yep, those are my sentiments as well. Thanks for confirming my thoughts on the price, simplicity, and lack of memory speed impact.

Will likely monitor the used market, and jump on a CPU that may become available.
 
You can run slower ram, with Ryzen 3000, and still get decent performance.

Or use slow ram and overclock the heck out of the IF clock to achieve similar performance to faster ram.

I dont know why the Infinity Fabric clock was permanently locked to ram clock in the first place. At a time when fast ram was very pricy, AMD should have allowed Infinity Fabric overclocking in order for people to use slow ram with decent performance.

Who knows. It may have been hard to do with their old architecture or something.
 
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